Comment by bsder

> Alternate title: the graph that broke HN's brain.

It breaks my brain, but on the "Holy hell, that's a TON of extra calories for the entire population to be consuming."

That graph shows almost 30 pounds of sugar consumption differential between 1970 and 2000. That's roughly 15 pounds of bodyweight per year every year in calories. That's a HUGE amount of body fat packed on that has to be explicitly removed.

In addition, even in 2020, there's a difference of somewhere between 5 to 10 pounds of sugar consumption relative to 1970 which is roughly 2.5-5 lbs of extra body fat every year. That's 4-8% more calories consumed by the population every year. That's a LOT.

If there is no corresponding decrease in caloric consumption in some other category (remember: there was a big anti-fat push which switched everything to turbo amounts of sugar) then it's no wonder there is an obesity problem in the US.

Side note: my favorite anecdata on this is iced tea in Austin, TX. In the early 1990s, the default iced tea serving was a 32oz glass of unsweetend iced tea. When I came back in the late 2010s, the default is now a 16oz glass of sweet tea which is actually a hyper dose of sugar. Think of the gigantic amount of extra calories that people eating out are now consuming.